My fifth Mike Hammer book. I liked Spillane's style from the beginning, with its crisp dialogue and total lack of political correctness. And, even though I enjoyed this one, it was over-the-top ridiculous for the most part. Mike takes more of a licking, and of course, keeps on ticking. Anyone else would have spent a few days in the hospital or been in a coma. Talk about concussion protocol! Ol' Mike's brain ain't gonna survive many more books like this one. Too many dames falling for him too. And, that crazy ending! That was just stupid. ( )

A Woman hires a thug to get someone. There is an amount of missing microfilm, and number of violent assaults, and our hero survives, eventually doing in the chief baddy. This is a serious level of violence porn, and obviously not for Agatha Christy fans! ( )

The ending was good definitely wouldn’t be made today in this climate that’s for sure. The being the all man ladies man gets a little old. But I like the rest of it ( )

W/COVID brain, had trouble keeping up w/all the characters, had no clue who did it ( )

A thrilling final forty pages (out of of 168), but otherwise I thought it a little plodding for a novel with such unabashedly flat characters. I did enjoy that [spoiler alert] the plot hinged on a couple reels of microfilm. Given the publication date (1951), I was curious to know whether the villains used nitrate- or acetate-based film stock. The difference actually could have made for an interesting plot wrinkle. Speaking of wrinkles, the prize for most over-worked figurative language goes to "she wrinkled her nose"--I can't even imagine what that's supposed to look like, unless it's the expression people sometimes make when they smell something noxious. The final paragraph, with its deus ex machina (or, if I may, infans ex machina), stretched credulity just way too far, but some might find it a cute and ironic ending to a hard-boiled mystery. I enjoyed learning that Spillane was a dog lover and attended Kansas State College. ( )